What's going on? Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn complained that the only protest in favor of improved safety from the general public was the innocent sound of crickets chirping in the night. In other words, nothing.
Most view firearm violence as a crime issue, one for law and order to deal with. Certainly that is true. But, gun violence also follows the basic patterns of disease and we can use epidemiology to study disease patterns and causes. Epidemiology is basically body counting; either sick bodies or bodies that have passed away. The patterns tell us what's going on whether it is flu, cancer, heart disease, asthma or firearm deaths or injury.
Health care providers can help stamp out the vector of death and injury from guns since, like malaria and the mosquito, the vector is basically a gun. Not the gun your uncle and brother use to go hunting on the weekend or for sports shooting at the local range. In many cases, it's the one that's in the home.
As part of the medical interview, health providers, whether in the emergency room or in primary care clinics need to ask if a gun is kept in the home. If it is, is it locked away safely or is it kept unlocked and perhaps even loaded?
Epidemiology tells us that a firearm kept in the home increases the risk of a homicide occurring in the home by almost 3 times and suicide by 5 times compared to homes where no gun is kept. Although most gun deaths in Chicago are homicides, more than half of the gun deaths nation wide are suicides.
Doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners should ask patients if they keep a gun in the home and if they do advise to lock it safely and unloaded or get rid of it. We do lock poisonous chemicals in the kitchen cabinet to keep it away from kids, don't we?
END OF POST
No comments:
Post a Comment